A Flower Gift

I lost my mother last August, she was 89.  She slowly slipped away over a five year period.   I did get a glimpse of her previous self whenever we looked at or talked about plants and flowers.  She was a master gardener until the age of 84 when she had a stroke.  At the age of 72 she started a 3/4 acre flower garden at a new house she had built.  She completed it at age 80. 

As she neared the end of her life, we talked about her sending me a sign she was OK after she passed on.  She brought up the subject again on one of the last days she was still able to communicate.  I asked her how I would recognize the sign.  She smiled and answered, look at your flowers in the spring.  I expressed I wasn't sure what she meant and she told me I would just know.  That is how we left it; I knew in the spring, I would look very closely at my landscaping.

Spring arrived and the message was discovered written in living color.  A tree peony I planted as a mature specimen 4 years ago has never bloomed until this year.  It is covered with large pale purple-pink ruffled blossoms that have a heavenly fragrance.  I had a dogwood tree planted 8 years ago.  I watered, fertilized and loved it, but it never bloomed after the first year until now.  It had a delicate spray of creamy yellowish-white blooms.   The last gift I found was on a lilac bush I have been slowly pruning into a tree.  There I found a combination of pale and dark purple blooms for the first time.

Draw your own conclusion, but I know in my heart Mom sent a gift during the season that was her favorite.  Priceless!